My First Gardening Experience

To this day I still remember my first gardening experience. It started a few months after I moved into my first home. I thought it would be a good idea to start a garden so that I could have fresh produce and put my yard to good use instead of just growing weeds. At that point I knew very little about gardening but how hard could it be to start a garden and grow stuff? After all, it happens in nature all the time and nobody has to do anything.

The area in my yard that I chose for my garden was full of rocks and weeds. I spent several days of work clearing the entire area, leaving nothing but dirt. At that point, I didn’t know the difference between “dirt” and “soil”. I did not know I was dealing with unfertile, nutrition less, bare land.

Later, I went to the garden store and chose seed packets of whatever looked tasty. Carrots, squash, peas, it all sounded good. I dug a hole in the ground and poked the seed in. Next, I watered every day for several weeks before realizing that it was not going to grow. Even after I had that realization, I continued to water in hopes that my seeds would pull through in a last minute effort. But I knew there was no hope, and I was heartbroken. After all those hours of digging and pulling up weeds, I had no fruit to show for my labor.

Feeling like a failure, I went to the library and researched information on gardening.  I quickly found many books and reference material that made me realize the true skill required for gardening.  There, I learned about ideal soil conditions, when to plant seeds, how much to water and other valuable information.  Now, information is available with just a few clicks of the mouse.

If like me, you’re itching to start gardening I would urge you to learn from my mistakes. Hopefully you won’t have to go through the emotional disaster that I went through.

Good gardening!